


Road to Recovery

by thisbluespirit



Category: Dracula (TV 1968)
Genre: Dark, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Vampires, Victorian, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 09:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17139248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/pseuds/thisbluespirit
Summary: It will take time for Jonathan to become well again, but both Dr Seward and Mina are willing to do everything they can to help him – in very different ways...





	Road to Recovery

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calliopes_pen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calliopes_pen/gifts).



> A small treat for you - Happy Yuletide!

Jonathan woke screaming again. The reasons why were immediately lost with the dream itself as they so often were, but the feelings lingered. He was shaking as he shot bolt upright in the institutional bed, cold with sweat. The room was not quite dark, being lit by a lamp out in the corridor. He heard sounds of footsteps hurrying away down the hallway, alerted by his cries. As he expected, it wasn’t long before the door opened.

“Disturbed night again, eh?” said Dr Seward softly, as he crossed over to Jonathan and placed his candle on the bedside cabinet. Jonathan no longer occupied the secure wing, but he had not been well enough to go back to the Westons’ house with Mina, particularly not with Mrs Weston’s health being what it was. Seward sat down on the wooden chair beside the bed, and put out a calming hand to Jonathan’s arm. “Not to worry. No one could have expected you to recover so swiftly from your ordeal.”

Jonathan slumped back against the pillows and turned his head towards his visitor. “But what was the nature of that ordeal? That’s the question, isn’t it?” 

Too much of it was unclear in his mind – or perhaps not nearly unclear enough. He recalled his visit to Castle Dracula and meeting the Count, but his remembrances gave out after his exploration of the castle and became hazy and patchy. What he did remember, he wished he did not – snaring flies, craving the blessing of his Master, imprisoned first in one place, and then another, all full of terrors. He also recalled with distaste that he had led Mina to the Count at the last, before he had finally woken more fully in the graveyard in the wake of Dracula’s destruction and the ending of his spell over Jonathan and Mina.

Seward shifted uncomfortably on the chair. “Probably best not to think about it too much. The Professor feels it is best forgotten – it will have less power over you, and, as you know, I bow to his judgement in these matters.”

“Except for the fact that I _haven’t_ forgotten, not all of it,” Jonathan said. “However, I do try, I assure you. It gives me no pleasure to think of such unhappy things.”

Seward nodded. “Yes, of course. I am sorry, Harker.”

“You needn’t come running every time I have a nightmare. You have more than enough other patients to occupy your time, and I would not wish to drag you away from them or disturb your sleep for nothing more than this.”

Seward glanced away from Jonathan, and rubbed two fingers against his forehead. “Your case is, er, unique. I do not think that can be denied – or ignored.” 

“So it seems,” murmured Jonathan, and turned over to risk trying to sleep again.

 

Mina came to visit again in the morning. Jonathan was up and dressed and awaiting her, far more respectable-looking than he had been since he had first gone missing. He was wearing a light brown serge suit, and Mrs Hoskins the housekeeper had been prevailed upon to cut his hair, even if it remained white. He was still thin, although he had been beginning to eat more normally now. It had taken him a day or so before he could keep down very much, but after that, he had taken to the usual invalid foods, such as gruel, broth and beef tea. Certainly, there had been no more flies. Jonathan gave an instinctive grimace at the memory. Why had he wanted such things? An answer lurked somewhere in the blackness of his mind, but he refused to search for it. Let it sink deep and die, the Professor had said before he left. When it came to the remembrance of devouring flies, Jonathan was happy to take that advice.

Mina walked in briskly, taking his arm and kissing his cheek. “You look a little better this morning,” she said, with a smile. “I am so glad, dearest.”

Faint heat lingered where her lips had touched, and Jonathan put his hand up to the spot. Sometimes, his reaction to her confused him. This was Mina, whom he had missed so much in the castle, and she was fully herself, even if he was not. Yet it was in her presence that those misty memories of his period of possession most often clarified into something more solid.

“When may I take him home?” Mina asked Dr Seward, holding onto Jonathan’s arm. “He has not shown any signs of succumbing to Dracula’s wiles since that last night. You have told me so yourself. When may I have him?”

Dr Seward laughed at her eagerness. “Soon,” he said. “He still wakes in the night and has relapses into more unsettled states. And –” he hesitated, and coughed.

“And?” Mina raised her eyebrows.

Jonathan looked at Dr Seward. They had discussed this before. Mina’s visits left Jonathan strangely unsettled. The feeling he had when she touched him – familiar and unfamiliar, welcome and unwelcome – seemed to cause him mental confusion and feverish episodes. On the few days she had not come, busy with errands for poor Mrs Weston, Jonathan’s progression had been steadier. It could be mere coincidence, as Seward maintained, but Jonathan connected the two, and while he did, it would be better if she kept away. How to break that to her was the more difficult aspect. Jonathan avoided her gaze while Dr Seward made the attempt.

“I think perhaps,” Dr Seward said, trying for the kindest phrasing he could, “that he needs complete rest – complete peace. I do not wish to distress you, but a week without even your visits might help him considerably. There is no expecting a swift cure from such a devilish experience as your husband has suffered, but given that extra space and time, he may be calm enough to return home, at least for a trial period.”

Mina nodded, giving a small, sad smile. “I see,” she said, bowing her head, as she twisted a ring between her fingers. That too awoke memories in Jonathan, but too elusive to hold; always gone again, like a fleeting gleam of moonlight slipping in and out of the room on a cloudy night. “Yes, of course. As you know, I will do anything to help Jonathan.” She raised her chin. “I can be patient – I can wait.”

 

“Poor Mina,” Jonathan said, when she’d gone. He looked across at Dr Seward, pacing awkwardly about his study.

Dr Seward stopped and coughed again. “I am sorry it was necessary. As I have said before, I cannot help but think it a bad sign that you do not wish to see her.”

“I don’t precisely _wish_ it,” said Jonathan. “When she is not here, she is never out of my thoughts. And yet – when she is here – it seems to cause some darkness left in me to flare up.”

Dr Seward pulled a face. “Hmm,” he said. “Do you need to rest, or would you prefer to talk now?”

“I think I should rest,” Jonathan said. “For a while.” He was tired of trying to recount or explain things that he did not understand either.

 

There were fewer nightmares as that fortnight passed, it was true. Whatever the cause, Jonathan’s dim and alien memories also began to fade more quickly.

“As one would hope, given time,” said Dr Seward. He frowned over Jonathan’s sudden improvement now even as he had over the lack of it before. 

Jonathan didn’t care to question why too deeply. He feared the answers might require him to stay longer here and he was sick of prisons, and even in these conditions, the asylum was another such. He had been locked in a castle, inside a ship’s hold, and worst of all, deep within himself. No more, he promised himself.

“When may I leave?” Jonathan asked instead.

Dr Seward’s frown deepened. “If you continue in this way, I do not see why you should not go home to Mina at the end of the week. You must stay in Whitby for a while yet, though. I must keep an eye on you, and I cannot think you well enough to make the journey south.”

“How _is_ Mina?”

Dr Seward shook himself from a momentary abstraction. “She comes every day to ask for you, and I have told her that your progress is encouraging, so I think she takes heart from that. She seems well otherwise, although Mrs Weston is much in need of her help, poor lady – she is in ill-health and grieving over. Mrs Harker and I fear she cannot last much longer.”

“Poor Mina,” said Jonathan. Out of her presence, the unease he had felt was forgotten and he remembered only his dear wife instead. She would be frustrated, wanting to help him; that was only natural. He ached to see her, too. 

Dr Seward nodded, although slowly. “Yes,” he murmured. “Indeed.” He paused, and then added, “That house – all the blinds half drawn in mourning. So gloomy. I can’t like it. I do wish the Professor hadn’t rushed off like that.”

“Dr Seward?”

“Nothing,” he said, straightening. “I confess my own thoughts tend to be somewhat morbid of late. I do not care for this sort of business – I daresay that is all it is.”

“Ah, yes, of course. Miss Weston. I am sorry, Seward.” He patted Dr Seward’s shoulder vaguely, but his thoughts were already drifting towards the idea a real home, and Mina. He was sure of what he wanted now.

 

When Dr Seward let him go, and the coachman drove him home, Jonathan clambered out of the carriage when it stopped, and all but fell straight into Mina’s arms.

“At last,” she said, kissing him, as she gave a laugh, and led him inside. The Weston house _did_ seem dark, compared to the asylum, but, as Dr Seward had said himself, it was a house in mourning. “Here you are, Jonathan.”

He glanced around at the living room. He had not been here before and yet it felt as if something was oddly familiar. Perhaps, he thought, his gaze straying back to Mina, it was not the room. “Yes. Finally.”

“I’ve been waiting, as I promised,” said Mina, giving him a sudden, glinting smile, her eyes flashing dark. “Waiting so very patiently.”

The nightmare had never gone. It was here, also waiting for him, and Jonathan felt the darkness embrace him again, as she pulled him near. But, no, nightmare was not the word: he remembered now that the darkness was not terror or cages, it was bliss and pain, cage and liberty at once. He saw the echo of the Master in her eyes, and shivered with both fear and anticipation.

“Jonathan,” Mina said, in his ear, trailing a finger along his cheek, her nails sharp. What strength he had gained seemed to ebb out of him with the motion. He lent in towards her, and it felt, impossibly, as if she grew taller before him. She stroked his cheek once more, and kissed him on the mouth. He felt, for an instant, something sharp against his lips, the taste of blood in his mouth, and could have fallen to his knees before her had she not had so firm a hold on him. _Yes, like this,_ something in his mind said insistently, and he could not keep back a faint moan. 

His mind clouded further; his eyelids fluttered, and Mina pulled him over to the couch. 

“Rest now,” she said, her voice low, as she pulled him down, gently pushing him into a reclining position against the velvet-cushioned couch. “Later, all will be ours, all will be yours, I swear.”

“You can wait,” he said, echoing her words mockingly as something alien laughed through him. “Yes. And so can I.”

She smiled. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Only a very little while longer now. And then –” She gave a short, soft laugh as she brushed his hair back from his forehead, while he fought to keep leaden eyelids open. “Eternity.” 

She traced a line down from his jaw to the collar of his shirt, and when she kissed him this time, he knew no more, lost in dark dreams that were no longer nightmares. He was, indeed, home at last.


End file.
